I recommend mixing at least two, but no more than four finishes in each room. This is the hardest thing to do right, especially if you're new to the world of lighting. Before you buy, take some time to get inspired. Grab a coffee and flip through a magazine or browse Pinterest; or, if you want a more hands-on experience, go to a lighting showroom and move the lights from one side to the other to see how they look good together.
While it can be overwhelming to consider merging eras, styles, or designs in lighting, when you do it right, there's a lot of beauty in the mix. Combine a traditional screen with a contemporary base, try a metal screen with holes that offer a set of patterns on the wall, consider placing a visible light bulb or a paper lamp to differentiate the lighting of your space. Adopting decorative alchemy is fun and can make your home sing. God knows that I have spent countless hours in my personal homes and in the homes of my clients trying to understand this concept perfectly, so here are some tips that I hope will be useful the next time you are building, renovating or simply improving your lighting.
This tip is very important because the use of accessories with the same or similar shapes, colors, materials or styles will bring harmony to the space and allow the accessories to be combined perfectly, as if they were destined to coexist in the same space without being too similar. For example, the wall lights and chandelier in my dining room share the common trait of a medium modern style and share a color trait, so they work together in harmony to form an excellent plan and lighting appearance. This aspect becomes too combined and creates monotony, something that, in my opinion, is never good in design. If you want to use the chandelier, for example, from a collection of lights, but you also want to use the pendants or wall lights from that same collection because you love them, that's fine, but use them in another space separate from the space where you're using the chandelier so that things don't get monotonous. Cookie cutter manufacturers do this because it's easy and cost-effective for them, but if you're replacing lights, renovating, or building and you have options, avoid always using a collection of lights together in the same space. In the bathroom I could have used lighting from the same collection, which would have made my choices very easy, but taking the extra time to find matching accessories makes the space more interesting and less monotonous.
My luminaires share the same color and some similar shapes, but most of all they don't match and, therefore, give my space a more personalized touch. These downstairs lights are just some of the ones I'm contemplating for my new construction, but to give you some examples of lighting for an open-concept space where you can see several luminaires at once, I've purchased some combinations of different design styles (i.e., transitional, modern, bohemian) to give you an idea of how to mix and match lamps to create a harmonious lighting plan. Tour of the master bathroom of the cabin Tour of the master bedroom of the cabin Amazon favorites in style in my house.